Note: This is a seattlepi.com reader blog. It is not written or edited by the P-I. The authors are solely responsible for content. E-mail us at newmedia@seattlepi.com if you consider a post inappropriate.

Top Gear, Standardbred Style

“I’m guessing she has another gear,” I said to Aarene as we booked down the logging road at a comfortably fast trot.

This came close to being the understatement of the century. Aarene was behind me so I couldn’t see her roll her eyes as she responded. “She’s got SEVERAL more gears!”

It was our Saturday business ride. Aarene gave me the mount on the famous Fiddle and she was on Hana, borrowed from Duana. Hana was already cantering to keep up. I have been in that saddle and I know she’s got a nice low-maintenance canter, so I didn’t feel bad.

Although Aarene and I have ridden together quite a few times now, there has always had some limiting factor — greenies in the group, extreme heat or winding singletrack — that has kept me from seeing Fee’s “Big Thing” trot unreeled to its fullest. So how will I know when I’ve really got it?I wondered. I need not have worried.

You notice different things when you are riding a horse rather just riding in their company. Fee blew out several times shortly after I got on. That’s not remarkable – most horses do this as they begin a period of activity to clear their nostrils. Sometimes, with a new rider aboard, they are too tense to follow their normal routine. Not Fee.

“She’ll do that three times in this ride,” Aarene said. I had the advantage of an equine interpreter.

Sure enough, shortly after I made the inquiry about her trot, Fee had another blowing session. Aarene suggested that I let her gear up a little.

This was all part of a strategic plan. Fee knows the trails at the Victoria Tract of the Pilchuck Tree Farm intimately. Although the side trails are closed in winter, the extensive network of logging roads are mud-free even in the depths of winter, and not as concussive as they can be in the summer, so they are a safe bet for speed (as long as your horse has trained for it and has appropriate hoof protection). Aarene was setting us up for success and maximum enjoyment. There was only one drawback, and that was the lack of canopy cover.

Because it was raining. Not just a little misting, either. Good, steady rain that has started as soon as we brought Hana in from her paddock.

“Hana hates the rain,” Aarene said. I don’t think Aarene is really an enthusiast either, in spite of all her rain gear.

Yup, it was raining. Two raincoats and a down vest over another jacket - photo A Storms

I glanced back. Hana was slogging along with a resigned expression. She knows the trails at the Victoria Tract as well as Fee. No doubt she was also anticipating working hard to keep up with Fee, who is more than a hand taller and is the product of a breed selected consistently for speed over the last two hundred years.

Not just any speed, though. If you don’t already know her from Aarene’s blog Haiku Farm, Fee is a Standardbred and her trot is her glory gait, but its not her only one. So as we came to a slow steady uphill, Aarene suggested that this was an ideal place to get a canter in. Not being bashful in that department, I asked.

I pressed the button with slightly more firmness that necessary, apparently. Fee slipped into a hand-gallop. Not bolting fast, but she was putting her back in it and going a little too fast for poor Hana, who I knew would feel compelled to keep up. So we adjusted down to a good cross-country canter – balanced and safe. As we came up to the turn that Aarene had told me at anticipate, we walked so that Hana could catch up (I think this was my plan, but it might have been Fee’s also – she definitely had an sense of where Aarene was during the ride). As they joined us, Fee had her third blow.

“Right on time!” Aarene commented.

We were riding to a well-established pattern. I have observed Fee on the trail enough to know that she keeps a steady pace on a loose rein. She doesn’t need constant reminders of your presence – she dials in quickly if you make even a small change in your seat or ask for her to move laterally.

That attentiveness is a testimonial to the years Aarene has put in. None of that was in place when Aarene took Fee over – she was a mine field of hormones and defensiveness whose answer to everything was “no!”

Aarene has written a capsule version of Fee’s history as part of a Haiku Farm blog post she wrote in October of 2011. If you read further, you can learn about Fee’s transformation from a mare that some thought unsalvageable into a partner who is, at eleven, now finally really able to use all her considerable gifts after Spay surgery.

In the arena, I am told, Fee can still throw out an occasional “no” – but while watching the end of one of Aarene’s lessons with Dory Jackson two weeks before, I saw mostly “yes, m’am.” Of course, Dory and Aarene made sure her feet were busy with lateral work, diagonals, anything that was not boring. So I I had clue what to do if there was any confusion.

But really, I wasn’t anticipating any issues. Fee’s demeanor was happy and she was in her element. The rain did not phase her one bit. My iphone did not agree, so I got only one blurry picture of Fee’s ears, and none at all of Aarene and Hana. They were there, though, gamely keeping pace.

We soon came to another long, steady incline. This time we ratcheted up the trot a couple of notches.

Fee is the first and only Standardbred I have ridden. Its dangerous to extrapolate from one horse, but I was really surprised by how smooth the accelleration was, and how steady and level her back remained, I went to a two-point position and just let her glide along under me. We were going really fast but… Aarene had said SEVERAL MORE.

So I closed my legs a bit.

Holy guacamole! I might even have said it out loud. We were going freakishly fast — but the gait was still as smooth as before.

Go for it! The Bad Idea Fairy said. Then her boring sister started in. You shouldn’t eat the plate of cookies down to the last one, no matter how tasty, especially not when you didn’t bake them yourself.

So I allowed us a few more moments of exhilarating flight, then geared down until Hana came up beside us.

“This is good. I am getting a lot of work on my canter,” Aarene said. “And I am getting to watch my horse go. Cool!”

Of course she wanted to photograph Fee going full steam, but without a vehicle on a track alongside, that was an impossible challenge, especially on such a rainy, dark day. We did a more collected trot and Aarene clicked away like mad. Only a fellow blogger can truly understand how important pictures, even blurry pictures, are. Actually I think Aarene did pretty well under the circumstances!

Fee doesn't look so tall with me on board - photo A. Storms

Then we walked for a while so we could talk without having to shout. Until we started to feel the chill. Because it was still raining…

I now completely understand why the canter isn’t Aarene’s go-to gait on the trail. Fee’s canter is easy enough to ride, but even her revved-up version is slower than her top trotting speed, and she tires more quickly. You can train muscle and metabolism to some degree and stretch your horse’s comfort zone, but if you ride for distance, efficiency rules.

Before I got to ride Fee I should say that although I had never actually ridden one, I was not a total Standardbred neophyte. I have seen plenty of the under saddle in this country and in New Zealand. And though the Standardbred industry in North America revolves primarily around training in harness, there are lots of old prints of people racing trotters under saddle.

Lady Suffolk had a reported time of 2-1/2 minutes for a mile trotting under saddle

While looking for an example from the past, I found that there is still quite a bit of formal Standardbred racing under saddle in Europe, and a little in America too — these riders in an article written by Ellen Harvey for The Red Mile are an example of a more modern forward seat on a trotter.

Now I can look at these images with more comprehension. While there is being a jockey is always a potent cocktail of skill, stategy and plenty of physical risk, it’s not as physically tiring as staying with the motion of a galloping horse. Nor is it quite as fast – but from the time of Lady Suffolk, whose record time equates to about 24 mph, record trotting speed is now 10 miles an hour faster. When you consider that most horses trot 10-15 mph at their utmost, the degree of specialization of the Standardbred is apparent.

So if Fee had a lighter rider, were on a level track, and was in training for racing, no doubt she’d have yet another gear or two. What we did was Holy Guacamole speed already – that’s all I can say!

Here is a video of Aarene trying out some Renegade Boots a few years ago with Fee. This is not her top speed, but it gives you an idea of how much ground she can cover with ease (If you are curious about how the boots worked out, you can read here… in which I just learned she can pace too!)

I asked Aarene later if she ever unleashes this “Big Thing” trot at an endurance ride. “Usually at least once, but not on the first loop. If she is feeling good, and the footing is good, then I let her go for a little bit,” she said.

Aarene mostly rides alone when she is competing, unless she is sponsoring a Junior or hooks up with a compatible horse on the trail. That allows her to be strategic about using Fee’s rocket boosters.

Rear-thrust engines work in the arena too

Somewhere back at the barn, after snapping up the offer to ride Fee like a swamp gator going for the baited hook, I recall saying, “We can always switch back halfway…”

That never happened. I blame the fact that we were riding a loop and so I couldn’t judge where halfway was. I don’t ride at Victoria very often – once, in fact, last summer, when Aarene took me on the tourist loop. But I did recognize the field we were riding past.

“We are almost back at the trailer, aren’t we?” I felt a flush of guilt. “I think you’ve worked a lot harder than I have,” I remarked. That could go for Hana too.

“I have posted three times as often as your have. Hana did great though,” Aarene said. “It’s really helping that Duana rides her so often.”

It was then that Aarene showed me the hook. “There’s a mare at Greener Pastures called Becky Tiara,” she mentioned.

Yeah, I saw her video,” I said. Greener Pastures is a Standardbred post-racing placement group, and I am a fan of their Facebook page, and so those videos appear in my feed all the time. I watched the video purely for academic interest. “She can move…” I said. “She’s pretty green still, but yeah, she worth looking into… if you are looking.”

Aarene has a lifetime mission to get everyone she knows on a Standardbred. Her first and much-loved horse was a Standardbred mare named Story, as you’ll know if you read the blog post with history of Fiddle.

She is not shy about proselytizing for the off-the-track Standardbreds either. She posted the pictures from our ride on Facebook with the caption “the first ride is free…”

It will be hard not to crave another dip of that “holy guacamole” trot… but then some of the other horses I ride are pretty fabulous too – I’d put Danny’s glider-rocker canter up there with Fee’s trot for addictive factor and Willy is in my life because he is a Thoroughbred and my first and much-loved horse was a thoroughbred. But I am willing to concede that in the trot, Fee reigns supreme, and were my heart a clean slate… but it’s not. Which is good – I can fall a little bit in love with other people’s horses – and then give them back.

Smart women collect horses with the lens only

Aarene’s zeal isn’t easily damped down, though. In the truck on the way back, she even tried to convince me that the corn chips made locally are healthier and better than those made by larger brands simply because they are made by “real people.”

I was willing to go with her theory until a quarter of the way through the bag. Then I borrowed her reading glasses from the dashboard and honed in on the list of ingredients. To the basics of Corn, Canola Oil and Salt were added Sodium Propionate and a couple of other preservatives. Nope. Same Bad Idea. But of course did they taste good. I am not trying to draw a parallel. I DO NOT subscribe to the theory that horses are like potato chips. Or corn chips. Or any kind of unhealthy, addictive snack food.

But perhaps YOU are lacking in horses and could go up to Greener Pastures and try out Becky Tiara. It’s only a short hop across an international border in Langley, BC. I am sure Aarene would be happy to facilitate – she’s like to have someone else riding the “Big Thing” next to her to exchange gleeful squeals with.

Incidentally, if you visit their website, you can learn what Fee’s “real” name is. Its not a secret, but if I knew it, I had suppressed it out of respect. I’ll just say it is good for at least a snork or a chortle, if not an outright guffaw.

If you aren’t horse shopping, you can still like their Facebook Page. Because you have self control like me and can look at lots of nice horses without being led astray. Right? And you don’t fall in love with a photograph, you chose a horse for the rider you are, not the rider you want to be, and you get a vet check. Right?

Just as we returned to Fish Creek to drop Hana off, the rain stopped. This was handy, as we had to load Aarene up with E-101 books for the AERC Convention in Reno next weekend. That was the “business” part of the ride, in case you are wondering. In Reno, Aarene is doing an E-101 talk with slides, signing books, and even threatening to do a little shopping. I know that Sherri and Diana of American Trail Gear will be watching over her, but still, I am a little anxious sending her out to do this on her own… I guess if she can trust me to ride Fiddle, I can give her the reins on this one, though!

Note: This is a seattlepi.com reader blog. It is not written or edited by the P-I. The authors are solely responsible for content. E-mail us at newmedia@seattlepi.com if you consider a post inappropriate.